The Adirondacks of the High Desert

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Below: Previous seating experiments on the Rat's front porch. Sad at best.
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A) Having been through at least six of them, I can say that this configuration was by far our worst investment. Within a year, their fabric rips, their tubing and connectors break and you might incur bodily damage or possible sterilization depending on where and when they inevitably let loose. Land-fill cloggers. Don't even go there.

B) Unrestored chairs from the moving trailer. Don't wince - almost ALL the furniture in the Rat looked like that at one time. This Renaissance Revival survivor will look very different some day when I get a real shop back into my life. In the meantime, these long neglected relics might have a leg or a seat pan let loose at the most inconvenient moment, especially if you have that unforgivable habit of rocking back on their rear legs - ask any cowboy.

C) Yes, it's the ever versatile dairy crate again, ONLY called into play when more than one visitor showed up. But do note that it has a much better pattern for avoiding waffle-butt than the one shown in The Generation Wars.

D) Another desperate measure in porch seating. It might have surpassed the dairy crate but for one fatal flaw; notice that there is a molded-in hinge in the lid which is well offset to one side. It does not, therefore, match the God-given symmetry of the human buttocks. This will cause an never-ending shifting in hopes of finding a comfortable alignment. Somewhere in that process, you will find yourself radically off its safe center of gravity. At that point, if the container has been used to store the product well-used by felines, you will not only find yourself flat out on the porch but with a goodly amount of cat doodoo and litter covering you. So avoid this one if possible and resort back to option C if necessary. This one is safer being used as an end table.

Our visitors have all been incredibly good sports up to now but we didn't want to push the limits of their endurance so we recently hit the catalogs hard. Catalogs are another invaluable resource which you will rely upon heavily if you move to the middle of nowhere and I mean for far more than classic outhouse use. When a supply run involves half a day of commuting, you no longer have time to stop here or there to browse on the slight chance of finding the occasional non-staple items you desire.
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Tah-dah!!! . .In fear of calling the Southwest Decorum Squad down upon us, we compromised and ordered four chairs like the more mission-styled chair in the middle of the photo above and only two of the Adirondacks. They all showed up unassembled in flat cardboard cartons and the assembly was done easily without referring to the somewhat odd 'Engrish' on the single page instruction sheets.

What's nice about the center chair is that it comes without any finish so you can let it weather or apply stains, embarrassingly gaudy paints and stencils, whatever your heart's desire. We will eventually use them as outdoor dining chairs. While they look great, their one drawback is that, after sitting down, you realize that the arms are strangely low and therefore amazingly useless unless you happen to have the torso of a circus midget. The advantage of the low arms is that they will fit under a table much more easily and therefore save needed space when not in use. We found those on-line at Northern Tool.

It was the surprising comfort of the Adirondacks which blew us away. Before we moved here, I had the templates to make a fixed-position Adirondack chair which was famous for comfort back home. Even if those paper patterns had survived the move, the time and materials would have been more than these cost us; under $60 each on sale from Sportsman's Guide. These were equally well constructed but arrived with a clear finish. When I finished assembling the first one, I plunked myself down in it for a skeptical try out. I had sat in plenty of uncomfortable Adirondacks in the past but this one was immediately downright cozy and relaxing. If it hadn't been sitting out in the scorching noonday sun, I would have dozed off immediately.
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. But wait, there's more! Here is that chair folded down for storage. I was as equally skeptical about the promise of how compact it might be for winter storage but when I pushed back on the lower end of the back rest, the chair easily relaxed into what you see above. And it doesn't appear to be interested in collapsing when you are occupying it (perhaps, if you are behaving like a complete and talented idiot, it could be accomplished though). Now I only regret not having ordered four of these instead of two. Okay, so maybe they look more at home beside Schroon Lake ... but color us pleased and comfy on the Rat's front porch ... finally! .
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